Editor’s note: this is the first in a series of Point/Counterpoint entries that present differing views on a single topic.

The coffeehouse giant’s new ad campaign launched this month, along with a Twitter twist. Posters featuring a burlap sack design and the tagline “It’s not just coffee. It’s Starbucks” will be put up in select major cities. Starbucks is challenging people to scour their cities for these new posters, then be the first to post a photo of one on Twitter. The campaign aims at telling the story behind the quality of the coffee and apparently is the biggest marketing effort the company has ever undertaken. The ads come at a good time since every other commercial on the radio or TV is for McDonald’s McCafé drinks.

But knowing that Starbucks selects only the best 3% of beans and roasts them until they pop twice — is that really going to make consumers pay a few more bucks for each cup of joe? That is, consumers who aren’t already loyal “Starbuckers”. All coffee isn’t the same, but in these tough times we’re really trying hard to convince ourselves that it is in order to save a few bucks. Not so sure the quality argument will win the coffee race in 2009. But then again who am I to talk? I don’t even like coffee that much.

Children’s Medical Center in Dallas made history last Monday by becoming the first hospital to Twitter live during a transplant surgery. In simultaneous surgeries, a father gave a kidney to his 3-year-old son and hospital staff tweeted during both procedures. Family was able to get real-time updates on every step of the surgeries and more than 2,000 people followed every minute of the story online. Doctors said that while the tweets alleviated stress and anxiety for the family, the goal was to raise awareness for living organ donation.

Exciting as it is to hear about, these in-surgery tweets raised some questions for me: How graphic and uncensored an update would you want to get about a family member in surgery, particularly if something goes wrong? If this starts a trend for doctors in the future to tweet about their surgeries in real-time, would there be an agreement that both good and bad tweets be posted? There are lots of issues of patient privacy and medical liability to be sorted out before Twitter would have any real role in the operating room. And besides: who has the time to tweet about the doctor’s every move? Isn’t everyone in the operating room…busy?